Prayers needed for Rep. Gowdy as he moves forward to bring the truth to the American people. “President Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress and the mainstream media face a huge problem in House Speaker John Boehner‘s decision to appoint a select committee headed by Rep. Trey Gowdy to investigate the Benghazi scandal. Gowdy is a former prosecutor who has demonstrated beyond any doubt in his work on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that he means business. Don’t be deceived by the Southern manners and the “Yes Ma’ams” and “No sirs.” So Democrats will spare no effort to make Gowdy’s life miserable and the work of the panel impossible to complete.” The four Ds of the Democrats’ Benghazi strategy: Deny, Delay, Disrupt, Discredit

Falling dominos. “Tom Donilon, President Obama’s National Security Advisor, is likely to be sitting on a hot seat very soon, as the Benghazi investigation moves forward. Ben Rhodes and Tommy Vietor have a boss, and it is Donilon. [Snip] Why Donilon matters so much on Benghazi:

No one who has worked for a president and emerged reputation intact is naïve enough to believe that young staffers like Ben Rhodes and Tommy “The Dude” Vietor just woke up one fine morning and decided to do whatever they did in the memo writing department out of the blue. These guys would instruct a UN Ambassador on Benghazi? Or for that matter on anything else? Dudes! Somebody is hallucinating!

Rhodes and Vietor had a boss. A senior. Somebody who was perceived inside the White House as a political heavyweight. Precisely the kind of person who could talk directly with the president — or say he did and make it up as he went along. (snip)

Pat Caddell’s well-experienced and savvy point is that the next domino in the Obama White House Benghazi scandal is Tom Donilon. Caddell makes his case for a reason. And yes, while the two may have crossed swords in the Biden days, Caddell is surely not putting himself out there on something like this without a serious understanding of Donilon.” Is Tom Donilon the key to Benghazigate?

“Two takeaways here: By making the committee’s tenure unlimited, it will discourage foot dragging on the release of information. It won’t end it, but there will be no incentive for the White House to “run out the clock” on the committee. Secondly, access to intel files is vital in order to get to the bottom of what happened. No word yet on whether all members will have access to all the intel – sometimes it’s just the chair and ranking minority member who get to see the real sensitive stuff – but my guess is that all members will be privy to all the files.” Benghazi panel to have broad powers, access to classified intel

“The Obama administration is withholding the full contents of a “media strategy” discussion over a Fox News report on Benghazi, claiming that releasing them would have a chilling effect on their “frank deliberations.” The seven-page email chain was in reference to a Fox News report on Sept. 27, 2012, that the intelligence community knew within 24 hours that Benghazi was a terrorist attack. The emails, with the subject line “Fox News: US officials knew Libya attack was terrorism within 24 hours, sources confirm,” was circulated at senior levels of the administration. Denis McDonough, the president’s deputy national security adviser during Benghazi; John Brennan, the former White House counterterrorism adviser; and presidential communications adviser Ben Rhodes, whose Sept.14 email linked the anti-Islam video to Benghazi, were all part of the discussion.” Obama administration withholding full contents of emails over Fox News Benghazi report

“When Pelosi was Speaker of the House, she did not subscribe to a bipartisan way of leadership. She used her position to rally Democrats: ramming the Obamacare Bill through Congress, cutting off floor debates, as well as any opportunity to substantively amend the legislation. Regardless of whom they choose for the Benghazi Committee, a successful investigation is dependent upon rising above politics, and looking at this from the perspective of a concerned American.” Trey Gowdy Turns the Tables on Pelosi & Company With This Dose of Reality

Another Important Story of the Day

Please say a prayer for the young girls. “The insertion of American resources into Nigeria suggests that the government isn’t trying to downplay the abductions — but probably isn’t capable of dealing with them either. Boko Haram has been conducting a terrorist civil war for years, and operates with some impunity in a large part of the northern region of Nigeria. They have access to the borders of Niger, Chad, Cameroon, and Benin, which means that their hostages could be moved out of Nigeria in a number of different ways. If Boko Haram was too much for the Nigerian security system as a fighting force, dealing with abductions will be even more difficult.” Video: US help on its way to Nigeria as second mass abduction of schoolgirls comes to light

America in Decline

Dr. Carson also says that America will remain a pinnacle nation for years to come due to our military strength, as well as our the depth and stability of our financial infrastructure. I am not sure he realizes how our military strength is being decimated under President Obama and Secretary Hagel. “The economic problems we are experiencing in this country, fortunately, are induced by our own ineptitude. I say fortunately, because it is within our power to alter our course. We do not have to depend on the good will of someone else. When we work together, as was the case with the Simpson-Bowles commission on fiscal responsibility, excellent ideas can be generated that could move us along the path of economic recovery. As was the case with the Roman Empire, our fate is in our hands.” Rethinking America’s Decline: China is trying to surpass us, but it remains in our power to stay on top.

Big Government

Secrecy in the Obama era. “Looks like about 10 people in Washington are aware of this top secret office run by EPA administrator Gina McCarthy. Now, we’re all going to find out exactly what this politically charged branch of the EPA does because the inspector general’s office is accusing them of impeding their investigations into corruption, computer security, and employee misconduct.” Did you know the EPA has an ‘Office of Homeland Security’?

More on the secrecy of Obama’s administration. “The House Oversight Committee under Darrell Issa is slated to hear testimony today on another Obama administration cover-up. Dina Cappiello of the APreports:

A unit run by President Barack Obama’s political staff inside the Environmental Protection Agency operates illegally as a “rogue law enforcement agency” that has blocked independent investigations by the EPA’s inspector general for years, a top investigator told Congress. [Snip]

Last year, the Defense Department’s inspector general removed material from a draft report that concluded then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta had improperly disclosed classified informationabout the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden to a producer for the movie “Zero Dark Thirty.”

The inspector general, Arthur A. Elkins, Jr., was appointed to lead the office by Obama in 2010. However, it’s an independent office within the agency expected to be outside of political influence.

“It’s disturbing that even investigations by this administration’s own nonpartisan watchdogs are being blocked by political appointees,” said House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif.

The Left NEVER gets that their policies ALWAYS have horrible consequences. “On the other hand, Gov. Jerry Brown – yes, the now geriatric Gov. Moonbeam of the 1970s and ’80s – simply dismissed the news, hubristically averring that“[w]e’ve got a few problems, we have lots of little burdens and regulations and taxes, but smart people figure out how to make it.” So there’s our explanation for Toyota’s move: the Toyota people are just stupid! The LA Times, the voice of the progressive left in Southern California, echoed Brown’s ludicrous line in a piece trying to show that the Toyota move had nothing to do with bad business conditions in California. But if anyone is obtuse here, it is Governor Moonbeam and the LAT. He is the one who gave the public employees the right to unionize, knowing that their dues would flow to his party. In the three decades since, pay and pension benefits for public-sector workers have ballooned, and the state faces an unfunded pension liability of upwards of $500 billion. Moonbeam is the one who refused to build any new freeways, leading to the endless traffic gridlock workers must endure. He has generally pushed an extreme environmentalist agenda that has made water and inexpensive housing scarce, and it is he who will be driving the cost of electricity through the roof over the next few years.” Toyota to California: ‘Don’t Mess with Texas’

China

China looking to those of the Jewish faith to learn how capitalism works, because our Jewish friends know how to make money! “Over the past couple of decades the Chinese have become more interested in the Jews. Of late the Chinese regime has been bringing Jewish scholars and theologians to the People’s Republic to discuss Torah, Talmud, Mishnah and even some of the more mystical tracts. Why? [Snip] After a couple of decades of this, there were still problems, and their social scientists took another look. This time around, they found–surprise!–lots of Jews involved in capitalist enterprises, from banks to stock exchanges to corporations. Indeed, the Jews had a history of doing it. Maybe the Jews knew something the others didn’t? Well, look at Israel…or New York… And so they’re talking to Jews, not about capitalism but about Judaism. State radio now broadcasts in Hebrew. The Jewish experts who are brought to China find themselves speaking Hebrew with their Chinese interlocutors. Chinese students can now learn Hebrew, and immerse themselves in Jewish studies (maybe they’ll give Ayaan Hirsi Ali an honorary degree sometime soon?).” The Chinese and the Jews

The Economy

America becoming France. “For the first time in 3 decades, businesses are collapsing faster than they’re being created. That’s the concluisions of a study done by the Brooking Institution, which looked at business creation since 1978. [Snip] No, it’s not entirely the fault of President Obama’s policies, but given the slide in the last 3 years of the study, it’s hard not to make a case that higher federal taxesand more regulation has stifled business creation and led to more business failings.

The authors don’t mince words about the stakes here: If the decline persists, “it implies a continuation of slow growth for the indefinite future.” This lack of economic dynamism, particularly the steep drop since 2006, may be one reason why our current recovery has felt like much less than a recovery. As Matt O’Brien noted on Wonkblog last week, annual job growth rates have stubbornly refused to budge above 2 percent for the duration of the recovery.” Obamanomics: More businesses going under than are being created

Elections

Laura Ingraham was talking today on her radio show about rebranding the “Tea Party” to a more populist “American Party.” I like the idea. “It was pretty much a rout for Tea Party/insurgents in yesterday’s primaries, as establishment-backed candidate for the North Carolina Senate nomination Thom Tillis easily exceeded the 40% threshold necessary to avoid a run-off, while incumbent House members John Boehner (OH), Renee Elmers (NC), Walter Jones (NC), David Joyce (OH), and Susan Brooks (IN) defeated challengers from the right. But before concluding that all is hopeless, consider a few aspects of the situation.” GOP establishment strikes back in primaries

What happened to the BIG TENT? “The Republican establishment gloated after three underfunded Tea Party challengers failed to knock off incumbent Republicans in primaries on Tuesday while another establishment-backed candidate secured the GOP nomination for Senate in North Carolina. “Next up is that fraud @MattBevin! #GOP,” tweeted Jahan Wilcox, a former aide to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) who is now the RNC’s director of rapid response. (He later deleted it and said his thoughts were his “personal opinions.”)” REPUBLICAN ESTABLISHMENT GLOATS AFTER PRIMARY VICTORIES

Global Warming

Scare tactics… Follow the money, because that’s what this is all about for the White House, and the Democrats. “The White House issued its third National Climate Assessment (NCA) yesterday to much fanfare and an avalanche of positive press. But two climate researchers, scientists Patrick Michaels and Paul Knappenberger of the libertarian Cato Institute, called out the administration for relying on faulty data and non-scientist input. [Snip] The report is at odds with some of the UN’s conclusions in its most recent studies. For example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report notes that there has been no increase in the severity of storms in decades. There was also no mention in the NCA of the 15 year pause in rising temps, nor why the increase in CO2 levels in the atmosphere has not led to an increase in temperatures as all models say it should. This is the game the White House has been playing – they ignore current data and conclusions in favor of their overarching narrative of imminent disaster. It’s dishonest and good on Cato for calling them out on it.” Researchers call White House Climate report ‘pseudoscience’

Leftist policies not working as intended, once again. “Last November, when the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) proposed moderating years of escalating mandates by reducing the amount of ethanol that must be mixed into gasoline, a top ethanol lobbyist seemed perplexed. “We’re all just sort of scratching our heads here today and wondering why this administration is telling us to burn less of a clean-burning American fuel,” Bob Dineen, head of the Renewable Fuels Association, told The New York Times. Here are a few possible reasons why: America’s ethanol requirement destroys the environment, damages car engines, increases gas prices, and contributes to the starvation of the global poor. It’s an unmitigated disaster on nearly every level.” The Ethanol Disaster: America’s renewables policy is bad for consumers, the environment, and the global poor.

The IRS

Could we please get to the bottom of this scandal in OUR lifetime? “So with Lerner expected to be held in contempt and GOP leaders calling for a special counsel, here are the 10 major defenses put forth by IRS defenders, and 10 reasons why the administration has literally nothing left to throw at the wall:
1. Progressives were targeted, too; 2. Everything Elijah Cummings said; 3. No White House involvement’’; 4. A couple of rogue agents in Cincinnati; 5. Lerner can still cite the Fifth Amendment; 6. It could take years for the IRS to get all of Lerner’s emails; 7. No IRS coordination with other Obama administration agencies; 8. Don’t worry, federal government investigators are on top of things; 9. Only tea party groups were targeted; and 10. The targeting is over now.” HOWLEY: Ten IRS Scandal Excuses That Are Now Completely Discredited

The Left

To the Left, government IS God. “Instead of initiating every possible measure, program and project that might put people back to work, President Obama and his followers on the left prefer to offer increased benefits for the unemployed – even though numerous studies suggest that doing so beyond a certain point (which we have now crossed) – actually impedes returning to higher employment. Like bad doctors, they would rather treat the symptoms than cure the disease. (And no, I am not likening the unemployed to the sick.) Some on the right think this strategy is part of a grand plan. They see an increase in the number of Americans who are dependent on the federal government as beneficial to Democrats, who largely win the votes of those to whom they offer ever-higher benefits and welfare. I refuse to imagine that any such insidious thinking is behind the left’s refusal to embrace job creation. I believe, instead, that it springs from a wide-spread lack of private sector experience. President Obama believes the government can right all wrongs – that’s the wellspring from which community activists derive their inspiration. It is a philosophy that has done great damage to this country in recent years – and we’re not out of the woods yet.” The Real Reason the Left Hates Work

More Leftist hypocrisy. “There is nothing wrong with spirited, even heated, public debate. That is quintessentially American. There is something very wrong with bullying. Reid’s hypocrisy is exquisite. Reid is extremely cozy with left wing billionaires engaging in politics, as smartly observed by, among others, US News & World Report columnist Peter Roff and, in Politico,National Review’s editor Rich Lowry.vYet political hypocrisy is at worst a venial sin. Reid is committing a mortal political sin. In slandering two private citizens as “about as un-American as anyone that I can imagine” — on top of a campaign of relentless vilification — Reid clearly has crossed a line. The Senate’s dignity demands that Reid be held to account. Nothing less than censure will do.” Harry Reid’s Neo-McCarthyist Vilification Of The Koch Brothers Begs For Censure

Where we’re headed. “Paul Weston, the chairman of a new political party in the United Kingdom called Liberty GB, was making a speech Saturday outside the Winchester Guildhall in Hampshire when suddenly everything went wrong. Weston made the mistake of quoting a notorious Islamophobe, whereupon a woman in the audience, disgusted by this hate speech, contacted police, and Weston was duly arrested. The Islamophobe in question was an obscure British politician of the distant past named Winston Churchill, who apparently had something to do with leading the British to victory over something called Nazi Germany in a conflict apparently known as “World War II.” However, the Nazis were vociferous critics of Zionism, and thus couldn’t have been all bad.” Arresting Churchill

The state of our elites. “In both the old and new Puritanism, worshippers achieve a sense of moral worth simply by designating themselves among “the elect” — no good works required. To validate that uncertain status, however, they feel compelled to heap abuse upon the sinner lest they too be thought guilty of the sin.” The Suffocating Neo-Puritanism of ‘Progressive’ America

Money in Leftist politics. “The highly secretive Democracy Alliance (DA), which takes great pains to keep its work disbursing millions of dollars to left-wing causes beyond public scrutiny, has made a foolish mistake. According to the Washington Free Beacon, a document left on the floor following the DA’s latest meeting at Ritz Carlton hotel in downtown Chicago reveals the names of a number of wealthy individuals committed to moving U.S. policies to the left. Wealthy might be an understatement. The document has a list of new DA “partners” who must each contribute $30,000 in dues per year, plus an additional $200,000 in spending to groups supported by the DA. It also reveals the identities of DA “advisors,” foundation participants and other individuals who are getting a “sneak peek” at the DA’s activities. These partners include top labor, financial and business leaders as well as heirs to billion dollar fortunes, all of whom are recognized as large Democratic campaign contributors. The event was rife with hypocrisy. Despite Democrats’ regular pronouncements about the lack of transparency in political funding, the four-day meeting was closed to the media and the public, and participants are barred from discussing the details of the proceedings. Moreover, most of those invited were barred from the “Partner’s Only” room. [Snip] LaMarch also rejected the claims of hypocrisy that has seen the conservative Koch brothers and their “un-American” fund-raising activities become a Democratic campaign plank, even as the Democracy Alliance engages in precisely the same activity. “There is a degree of irony in using the current system to change the system,” he said. “But the alternative is a kind of unilateral disarmament.” The left is hardly unilaterally disarming itself. On the Super-PAC front, donors have given more than $77.6 million dollars to Democrats, compared to just over $23.3 million to Republicans. Nonetheless, LaMarch offered the same kind of sanctimonious rationale for leftist fund-raising that supposedly puts it on a higher moral plane than its GOP counterpart. “George Soros isn’t trying to get a tax break or relief from regulation or whatever. He is basically saying, let’s have a system where somebody like me would be taxed more heavily,” he contended, even as he asserted that conservative donors treat their contributions as “a business expense” that ‘coincides with self-interest in a narrower sense more than it does on the progressive side, so I think that is a distinction that is significant.’” New Democracy Alliance Donors Revealed

The Military

Our enemies are watching… Read the WHOLE THING, PLEASE! “The Democrats and the Obama Administration have decided to fundtheir domestic programs at the expense of America’s national security. The U.S. Army will be shrunk to its smallest force since before World War II, and the Marines will be reduced by manpower of about 8% by 2016. The entire fleet of Air Force A-10 jets will be eliminated. The Navy’s eleven aircraft carriers will have to reduce its operating status and the USS George Washington will be retired in 2016. Experts interviewed believe these reductions will impose a greater risk for the armed forces and a greater risk for America’s national security. [Snip] Former CIA Director Michael Hayden summarized it best, “We should not make arbitrary cuts based on political decisions. Let’s remember the enemy gets a vote. We can end up in a ground war even though we are not spending for it. This administration is embracing a national security policy that increases the risk.” They are also forgetting the lessons of history where the diminished training, maintenance, and the increased stress on the armed forces will encourage America’s adversaries to be emboldened to take risky and belligerent actions.” Military Downsizing = National Security Danger

The Minimum Wage

“Fair wages” will kill jobs. “How much can Mr. Joe American grocery store owner afford to pay an unskilled worker just entering the work force? When government pulls an amount out of the air that it believes is a fair hourly wage and forces it on business owners, business owners are forced to make real-world economic decisions. So, rather than Mr. Joe American grocery store owner hiring 5 kids for the summer to stack boxes and gather shopping carts in the parking lot, he hires only two kids – or none, and gathers the carts himself. Traditionally, as one’s knowledge, skills, and value to a business increase, so does one’s pay.” Democrats’ Immoral Approach to Minimum Wage

Obamacare

You can only fool the people until they witness how things really are. “The whole idea of ObamaCare was to decrease the number of uninsured. The reality, however, is that ObamaCare is nothing more than a giant wealth transfer system that forces people to buy plans and coverage they neither need nor want. ObamaCare isn’t gaining in popularity because the American people know that the media has no idea what the real ObamaCare enrollment numbers are. The people also know that the media don’t want to know the real numbers. All the media want is to dutifully repeat whatever Obama tells them to repeat. The barrage of polls WaPo mentions was really a barrage of media hopes and dreams that the dishonest propaganda campaign had worked. Oh, how they wanted to write stories celebrating the fact that Americans were starting to accept ObamaCare. Unfortunately for all concerned, the people are not as stupid as some would like. If nothing else, these polls also prove that New Media is getting stronger by the day, which makes it harder for the media and government to get away with these dishonest campaigns.” WAPO CONCEDES MEDIA’S OBAMACARE PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGN FAILED

A doctor manages to live 56 years without contacting his representative or senator… and finally writes all because of Obamacare. Click on over to read the entire letter. “You’ve probably seen other commentaries on Obamacare by doctors, but perhaps nothing with this level of fine detail. [Snip] Part of it everyone is familiar with — the high premiums and deductibles his patients face, employers dropping coverage due to increased costs, etc. This is actually the least interesting part to read. Several of his complaints are specifically from a doctor’s perspective, and these are far more illuminating. Among them: The extreme waste of time and added cost involved with the electronic medical record mandates, reduced and delayed government reimbursements for elderly and indigent patients, and the increased vulnerability of doctors who still bother taking government reimbursements to be targeted by “bounty hunters” seeking a payday based on some kind of potential compliance failure. This more interesting part begins at the bottom of page two.” Irate Maine doctor writes his senator about Obamacare

Obamacare not going as we told it would. “The good news about health-care expenditures is that they’re propping up gross domestic product: Without soaring expenditure on health care, yesterday’s lackluster GDP estimates would have been negative, instead of a paltry 0.1 percent. The bad news about health-care expenditures is that they’re, well, soaring. [Snip] The big increase was driven by the Affordable Care Act’s coverage expansion. Expect to see robust growth again next quarter, as the March surge in enrollment translates into an April-through-June surge in health-care consumption. Of course, it’s not necessarily bad that we’re spending more on health care. As I’ve often noted, even though people complain about spending growth, we’re a really rich country. People like being able to go to the doctor, and now they can do more of that. And Obamacare was projected to increase the growth rate of spending this year. On the other hand, spending wasn’t projected to grow this much. And last quarter’s figures weren’t about coverage expansion, because that hadn’t kicked in yet. Last quarter’s figures were about good, old-fashioned increases in spending per beneficiary. After all the speculation that Obamacare might be bending the cost curve, we now know that so far, it isn’t. That doesn’t mean expanding coverage was a bad idea, of course. It just hasn’t turned out to be as cheap as some were hoping.” Watch Obamacare Make Health-Care Costs Soar

Emphasis mine. “Not since 1980 has the American economy seen such a rapid expansion of health-care spending. It rose at an annualized rate of 9.9 percent, far outstripping inflation and standing in stark contrast to other components of the BEA report. Exports fell 7.6 percent, and demand for imports declined by 1.4 percent. Consumer consumption rose 3.0 percent, but that came in part from the high rate of health-care spending. [Snip] It didn’t take long for supporters of the Affordable Care Act to change their tune on the benefits of increased health-care spending. Think Progress’ Igor Volsky wrote, “All of this was fully expected,” and that the spending just reflected the fact that more Americans “are finally getting insurance and are using their care.” Oddly, the same publication lamented less than four months ago that Obamacare didn’t get enough credit for keeping spending increases down in 2012.” Obama’s Biggest Lie: The ACA Will Lower Health Care Spending

Simply outrageous. “When the government provides medical care, it normally delegates the task. Under Medicare, Washington doesn’t employ doctors, nurses, and hospitals to treat the elderly. It has to coax them to participate. Similarly, Obamacare functions only if big insurance companies are willing to play ball with big government. Those driven by the profit motive must be won over by those driven by the power motive. Money, however, is no object, since the bill for securing this alliance is sent to taxpayers. According to the latest Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates, more than $1 trillion will be funneled over the next decade from everyday Americans, through the IRS, to insurance companies.” The Slush Fund: How Obamacare pays off insurers.

President Obama

I’ve emphasized in bold what made me laugh—how exactly has President Obama’s work advanced opportunities for ALL people? “Movie posters for a spoof entitled “Saving Barack Obama” have hit Los Angeles ahead of the president’s visit to the city. The posters, which feature President Obama walking into the horizon between a pair of his teleprompters, have appeared on bus stops and benches throughout Los Angeles, including just outside Melrose Avenue, the main entrance to Paramount Pictures. [Snip] Obama will receive the institute’s highest honor, the Ambassador for Humanity Award, for his “global efforts to protect human rights, his commitment to education and expanding educational technology, and his work advancing opportunities for all people.” ‘President Obama’s commitment to democracy and human rights has long been felt,” Spielberg said.’” Parody Obama Movie Posters Arrive in L.A. for President’s Visit

We’ve got a terrific line up for our annual Christmas program. First up will be the Ignite Barbershop Quartet. Ignite began singing together after a quartet matching party in November 2015. They are all Champion members of Region 21’s Scottsdale Chorus and they will be singing for us!

After lunch, Congressional District 6 congressman, Representative David Schweikart, will talk to us about what’s happening in Washington DC, and provide us with a status of the Tax Bill working its way through the House of Representatives and Senate.

Finally, member Julia Graham will install our new 2018/2019 officers. We look forward to seeing you and be sure to bring a friend or two or three!